Synaptic

K.E.’s essay finds innovative ways to weave her own narrative of place into the assigned texts from discussions. I especially admire the authenticity of the closing, which avoids a dramatic discovery and instead focuses on locating the extraordinary in dandelions, one of the most ordinary features of spring. The narrative is also innovative in form and accessible to those unfamiliar with the texts referenced.

– Joshua Doležal

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A flickering red cardinal begins again his daily ritual,

Hurtling his frail body against the Plexiglas window

Of the small church room where we hold rehearsal,

At war with his own reflection.

Is he evidence of nature trying to break through?

It seems at this point that his beak is more cracked

Than the chapel glass –

Does he know that this mad insistence means certain death?

I. Bird-Feeder

“I can feel the sun now. The bird-chorus has run out of breath…The world has shrunk to those mean dimensions known to county clerks. We turn toward home, and toward breakfast.”

– Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

We skim above the lake’s surface, firmly planted on our yellow-plastic paddleboards.

“I’ll race you to the raft!” I call, and Becca jolts ahead of me. She’s got the sturdy build of a mac-and-cheese-addicted swimmer, and I, with my emaciated noodle arms, am no competition. Still, I paddle along after her, hearing the haunting huuuu-uuu of the loons and responding with my own warbled cry.

We can continue like this for hours: Becca paddling sturdily ahead and me cat-calling the loons as I dance and fall gracelessly above the murky water. We dock on pine-crusted shorelines before pushing off again, holding a vision of our own orange-cabined shoreline in our minds, lest we forget where to return. When our arms are too sore to propel us any further, we lie, rocking, on the unsteady surface, tangling our fingers into the waterweed and stonewort growing under the water, and sharing our hopes and unrequited summer loves as the Minnesota sun burns into our sunscreen.

When the bugs get too dense or the sun too low, we return to our shoreline, knowing the evening potluck which always awaits our return: red beans and rice, lasagna, fresh-caught walleye, strawberry and peach pie, and bread. Always bread – the middle slices smothered in garlic and butter, and the end pieces saved for the ducks that swarm the modest shoreline in search of scraps left behind by vacationing families.

After dinner, we tear scraps of leftover bread into chunks and hurl them into the water, beckoning the ducks to come closer, hoping that today will be the day they’ll snap food from our hands. Once our bags are empty, we run to the lodge next door for ice cream, and settle down on the green-painted swing in front of the water. Digging our feet into the sand with each forward swing, we let the ice cream drip in between our toes, mingling with the dirt into sticky, sweet, summer sand. In moments such as these, I feel what John Price describes as “the familial embrace of nature, body, and spirit” (9). In moments such as these, I feel peace.

My brother will rise before dawn, communing with the world under the water, searching for perch, sunfish, and the elusive Northern pike as the sun breaks over the rippling mass of the lake. I, however, choose to begin my mornings with a world already alive, waking to birdsong outside the log-walls of my small, makeshift bedroom, and blinking away the light barely-deterred by the thin, cotton-checked curtains in my windows. Minnesota morning.

This lake my family visits – Woman Lake – is part of a cluster: Woman Lake, Man Lake, Boy Lake. With all of the life springing forth from these lakes, one would never guess that they were named for death. After all, what tourist brochure will mention it? Who would want to vacation at the site of a slaughter? This place, a place of peace for me, is named for the death of Ojibwe women and children at the hands of the Sioux (Upham 92). This is not the tourism they want – a narrative of death and displacement, so the past is concealed. And now, the site of numerous vacation lodges and resorts, Woman Lake exists alongside the Cherokee Jeep, the buffalo nickel; a commodification of “wildness”; a disembodiment of indigenous suffering. As Linda Hogan might say, this place is a “[replacement] for what was being slaughtered…named for the very tribes and wild animals that were violated” (120). The only place Minnesota can remain perfect, I suppose, is in one’s memory.

Even the ducks are no longer what they once were to me. The lodge at the top of the hill no longer sells duck-bread – in its place on the worn oak shelves are bags of corn and seeds. The smiling lady at the front desk – Lori – tells me that this is better for the ducks; that when they eat bread, it overfills them, prevents them from growing feathers; it doesn’t provide them with enough nutrition. Some part of me, though – however illogical – longs for the time I could share what I loved with the ducks, watching stale loaves disappear down a flock’s gullets. I still buy the corn, still try to feed them, but they never stay as long, and more often than not, I am left stranded on the dock, watching their iridescent feathers fade into the sunset.

On the last day of our vacation, my mother buys a striped bird-feeder at a craft show in Hackensack. Haven’t you heard, Mom? I want to scream: the birds can feed themselves.

II. The Early Bird

“…they just keep telling me to leave it be, the momma’s coming back, the momma’s coming back, even though that isn’t true and even if it were, she’d be too late.”

– John Price, Man Killed by Pheasant

At age six, I find a broken egg-shell amidst the clover in my backyard – pale blue with brown speckles, and a baby jay nestled, shivering, inside. I take it to my mother, holding in my mind some heroic vision of salvation. She wraps it gently in a towel, places it into a ceramic dish, and hands me a spade. “Go dig up some worms. Nothing too large – it won’t be able to eat anything too big – but it needs food if it’s going to make it through the night,” she tells me.

Determination clouds my face as I head to our front garden to dig. The first dozen worms I uncover are enormous, their rippling, ropy bodies slithering out of my grasp and back into the blackened soil. Finally, I uncover the perfect worm: a wriggling mass barely more substantial than a spaghetti-strand. Taking my trophy back in to my mom, who has relocated the bird to our downstairs bathroom, I observe the bird in its smallness against the vast, Minnesota-themed space. It seems strangely at home amid the log-cabin photo frames and black bear figurines. Its beak reaches, pleadingly, toward the sky, but it clicks shut each time, empty. Weak. My mother has a sad awareness etched into her face; she knows it is dying and we cannot save it. I am too young to recognize this, however; I am focused entirely upon my task, eagerly sliding worm chunks into the jaybird’s reaching, open mouth.

“Slow down!” My mother cries, grabbing the remains of the worm from my hands. “Here. Do it like this.”

In the morning, I run downstairs to find that the bird and its small, makeshift nest have disappeared.

“I’m sorry,” my mom says. “He didn’t make it through the night.”

I find the bird in the garage: not yet buried, poorly hidden. Its beady eyes are frozen, and its beak is still open, still reaching.

The next time I find a shattered egg-shell – this time containing a small, bright cardinal – I shut my eyes tight and turn away, leaving it to be swallowed by ground ivy and dandelion tufts.

III. Seeking the Prairie

“…the spiritual journey to a place begins, as some claim, with mortal fear.”

– John Price, Man Killed by Pheasant

I am on the prairie, the sun burning dryly into my forehead, bleaching my hair a brighter blonde. After a long, dry drive and an even drier tour, my scout troop is hot, sweaty, and ready to return home to the comfort of air conditioning; ready to welcome our green lawns with open arms. We have listened to our guide lecture about how little native landscape remains in Iowa (.1 percent) and have heard and forgotten dozens of prairie-plant names. We are moments from piling back into the vans, when our tour guide hits us with the magic words: “Before you leave, how about a game of hide-and-go-seek in the prairie?”

She has known us for so little time, yet she knows us so well. Giggling, we run off in a dozen different directions, frantic to steer clear of the slow counting that means pursuit will begin shortly. I bury myself in a patch of tall bluestem (Andropogon gerardi, according to the guide). Satisfied with my spot, I lie flat on my back in the stiff, towering grass, closing my eyes. Minutes pass – maybe hours. I can hear the squeals of others being found, and I begin to worry. What if I am never found; if I remain here forever? What if I’m swallowed alive by this prairie? Standing, feigning ignorance, I surrender myself to the seeker.

“I found you!” Grace calls, triumphant, as the others laugh. “The game wasn’t over yet!” I shrug, good-naturedly. I don’t tell her my secret: that I’d rather be captured by her than by the prairie.

For years afterward, the prairie plagues my nightmares: a recurring dream beginning that night. In these dreams, I am running. Through golden fields, terrified by the wind and my own shadow, pursued by an assailant unknown, I fly – tripping in sneakers through too-tall prairie grass. My sight is obfuscated by the too-tall and the never-ending: Panicum virgatum, Schizachyrium scoparium, Sorghastrum nutans. Words and names blur and swirl together as I stumble through this unfamiliar landscape, entirely directionless. I arrive, finally, at a barren wooden house, drag myself – panting – through flower-papered hallways. I am in my mother’s closet, buried behind years of low-hanging cotton tees – I am holding my breath. I know they will come. I am holding my breath and – I hear footsteps; the door opens. Clothes are pushed aside: sloppily, rapidly.

Every time, I wake up, breathless.

What good can come from a landscape forced back from the dead?

***

Walking back from class one day, I tell Jess, “We should go to the Neal Smith sometime.” We have been given an assignment: to write about our connection to our native place, and it’s the only place I know to begin.

“I’m free over Easter.” She fishes in her backpack for a moment, then pulls her hand back, phone tucked neatly into her palm. She scrolls for a moment before returning to meet my eyes. “The weather looks like it should be pretty decent.”

“We could touch some grass. Y’know, have a spiritual experience with some buffalo,” I mumble, side-stepping the remains of a worm left over from last night’s rainfall.

“That’s a great way to lose a hand,” Jess says, tugging her backpack back into place.

“Yeah, but it’d at least be a great story.”

Jess must agree, because we make plans to go, pack lunches, and dig out our sturdiest boots. But, it rained, or – it was supposed to rain? Neither of us recalls, exactly; only we know that we never went.

And the rain never came.

IV. Dandelion Fluff

“Tiny, gladsome flower, / So winsome and modest, / Thou art dainty and sweet. / For love of thee, I’d die.”

– anonymous Dakota author, quoted in Melvin Gilmore’s “The Plant Tribes”

“The flowers are starting to bloom!” I shout, slipping out of my seatbelt and sliding out the backseat of the van to touch the fresh yellow blooms emerging in our lawn.

“Wait until I stop the car!” My mother calls from the front seat, but it’s too late. I’m already out among them, flailing my arms in an attempt to make snow angels in the bright green grass. Bringing the car to a stop, she follows me, her brow creasing under the wave of her freshly-permed hair. “Those are weeds, not flowers,” she says. “Your dad was supposed to buy weed killer for them…” Trailing off, she heads inside to confront my dad, slamming the metal door behind her with a resonant whunk.

The faint sounds of arguing slink out from underneath the garage door, but I am entirely oblivious; my ears muffled by grass, full of the promises of dandelion fluff.

***

Even now, I struggle to impress upon my parents the importance of dandelions.

“It’s some of the first food for bees in the spring,” I plead. “Besides, they’re such a beautiful yellow.”

“It’ll drive the neighbors nuts if we keep them,” my dad says, skimming absentmindedly through television channels. In his mind, this conversation has ended. In mine, it is just beginning.

Steven Apfelbaum, in his essay “Getting to Know Your Neighbors” writes about this same trepidation his neighbors had with his backyard prairie, unable to understand its purpose. One such neighbor, hailing from a farming community and mindset, saw Apfelbaum’s yard as “a weedy mess;” unable to understand why Apfelbaum didn’t “cultivate and spray to keep the weeds down” (319, 320). Perhaps this is the issue: a lack of patience; an inability to see the beauty of what will come. The natural is not seen as beautiful, but rather as something to be dominated, tamed.

Dandelions, despite my parent’s best efforts, remain my favorite flower. I’ve never understood the weed/flower distinction; twenty years haven’t helped my mother’s cause. The yellow blooms grow rampant in my parents’ yard and in the yards of all in the neighborhood. Perhaps tomorrow they will be gone, suffocated with Roundup and Weed B Gon, but for today they thrive in erratic, spontaneous communities.

One of them, I see, has already turned white, bearing its tall, age-worn head proudly. It’s such a beautiful thing: death giving birth to new life. In the backdrop of this scene, my front door opens. My mother, standing in the doorway, calls: “You’re home!”

And she’s right.

Works Cited

Apfelbaum, Steven I. “Getting to Know Your Neighbors.” Price 319-329.

Gilmore, Melvin R. “The Plant Tribes.” Price 132-137.

Hogan, Linda. “Department of the Interior.” 1993. Intersections: An Introduction to the Liberal Arts: Perspectives on Human Nature.

Dolezal, Josh, Amy Young, Chad Pierce, Shelley Bradfield, Stephen Fyfe, Daniel Dankert, and Hillary Hotz, eds. Tapestry Press, Ltd., 2014. 119-123.

Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac: And Sketches Here and There. Illus. Charles W. Schwartz. Oxford University Press, 1949.

Price, John T. Man Killed by Pheasant: And Other Kinships. 2008. University of Iowa Press, 2012.

Price, John T., ed. The Tallgrass Prairie Reader. University of Iowa Press, 2014.

Upham, Warren. Minnesota Place Names: A Geographical Encyclopedia. 3rd ed. Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2001.